


Shelter

by givemeunicorns



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M, Missing Scene, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-01
Updated: 2013-08-01
Packaged: 2017-12-22 01:16:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/907177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/givemeunicorns/pseuds/givemeunicorns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One day he’d come clean. One day he’d tell the truth. One day he’d be able to look Danny in the eye and admit what he was, what he’d done, would let Danny decide what to do with him from there. Because Danny deserved that at least. He deserved the truth. But not tonight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shelter

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt fill from my tumblr(sitdowngreenburg.tumblr.com)
> 
> This was actually and accumulation of like 3 prompts: 1) Ethan Staying with Danny in the hospital 2) Ethan thinking about Boyd's death and how that effects his relationship with Danny 3) Ethan's interactions with Danny's mother/father
> 
> Disclaimer:I don't own teen wolf *sadface*

                        He hated hospitals. There was a harsh chemical smell to them, that burned his sinuses, but it couldn’t cover up the scent of sickness, panic, blood, grief, infection, worry, or death.  He hated the idea of someone like Danny, who was life and warmth and strength, being in a place that smelled like the depths of human weakness.

            His fingers clutched at the strap of his backpack, hand pausing on the handle to Danny’s room. He could hear a second heart beat, slow and steady, beneath the sound of the machines and Danny’s own, caught the scent of honey suckle and baking powder, printer ink. Ethan had met Danny’s mother before, an attractive woman in her forties, with Danny’s big, dark eyes and sharp wit and easy smile. But this was different. This wasn’t coming over to work on physics and then staying for dinner. Her son had nearly died.

            He sighed heavily and opened the door, rapping his knuckles on the wood to let her know she was there. Danny was sleeping, as he had been for days, no movement other than the steady rise and fall of his chest. But he was still shades too pale for Ethan’s comfort, and the tubes and wires bothered him. He hated the way they looked, sticking out of Danny’s smooth, dark skin. His mother was slouched in one of the horrendous hospital chairs, knees folded under her, some outdated magazine open in her lap. She looked like she’d aged ten years since the last time he’d seen her, just days ago.

            “Hi Mrs. Mehealani,” he said quietly, offering her a smile.

            “Ethan,” She huffed, running a hand through her hastily pulled back hair, “Is school out already?”

            “Yes mam,” he offered, dropping his backpack in the corner.

            “Ethan, I told you, you can call me Grace. Mam makes me feel old. Well older, anyway,” she joked, stretching her legs.

            Ethan grabbed reached for his own chair, lifting it to pull it closer, instead of dragging it across the floor. He knew the sound wouldn’t wake Danny, not with all the drugs in his system, but it some how didn’t seem right to be too loud.

            “I have to go pick up the twins and get them off to soccer. Tendo will be by after he gets off work at six. We’re going to go out to dinner later, if you’d like to come,” she said, with that kind smile that almost made his heart ache. He was starting to loose the few scraps of memory he had about his own mom, but he liked to think she smiled like that.

            _Vernon Boyd had a mother too,_ a dark voice in his head reminded him, _One that probably loved him. That smiled at him like that. Now she’ll have to bury him. Because of you._

He forced the voice down.

            “That’s alright Mrs….Grace. I told my family I’d be home early tonight. Big test tomorrow,” he offered with a shrug, settling into his chair and her gaze softened.

            That stung, this woman looking at him that way. How would she look at him, if she knew what he had done? If she knew he’d just killed a boy no older than her own son?

            “I hope you’re not scrimping on your studies, coming here after school?”

            He shrugged again.

            “If I stayed home I would just think about being here and I wouldn’t get anything done anyway. At least here it’s quiet.”

            She laughed, fingers unconsciously stoking her son’s dark hair, little touches of affection that mother’s so often did. Had Boyd’s mother done that? When she found him in the mourge? She would have been crying though, not laughing. Or would she? Kali had said Boyd’s sister had gone missing years ago. One child gone, the other in the ground. It sounded like a cruel joke.

            “Danny’s right,” she teased, seeing his expression, “You are a worrier.”

            The made Ethan blush a little, with out meaning to. Danny was close to his parents, both of them. The fact that he talked about Ethan to them gave him a strange fluttering in the pit of his stomach. It made him feel elated and guilty all at once, for a million different reasons.

            But she didn’t seem to notice, her focus back on her boy, smoothing the hospital issue sheets, before she leaned in to kiss his forehead. Ethan dropped his gaze to his shoes. The kiss was a small motion, true, but it felt like something intimate, something shared between a mother and child that he didn’t have the right to intrude on, especially now. He’d helped one mother keep her son, while he’d taken away another’s. What kind of monster did that make him?

            He was surprised when she came around the bed, hand on his cheek and dropped a kiss into his hair. He froze. He knew he’d felt this before, this gentle, easy love, but he couldn’t remember it. Couldn’t remember a time before it was just him and Aiden, doing what they had to do to stay alive. He couldn’t remember what a mother’s touch felt like. It hurt, because he knew he didn’t deserve it. He wanted to tell her that, to warn her he wasn’t worthy of any affection she held for him. To warn her he was a monster.  But he didn’t have the words. He knew he must have been staring at her because she dropped her hands and backed off, with the same small apologetic smile that Danny sometimes got when he thought he’d said the wrong thing.

            “Thank you,” she said and he voice sounded raw and rough, a sound that woke Ethan’s wolf, made him want to protect this woman, the same way he wanted to protect Danny, to put himself between them and anything that meant to cause them pain, “If you hadn’t have been there…”

            He smiled, reaching out, almost hesitant, to squeeze her hand. He’d seen Danny do that for Lydia when she was upset, and it just seemed right.

            She shut the door quietly behind her and Ethan let out a heavy sigh, slouching in his chair. He was bone tired, guilt and worry weighing down his shoulders. He knew he should leave, should get as far away from Danny as he could. He’d already brought this down on them, in a round about way, and there was fresh blood on his hands. There was no guarantee, regardless of what McCall said, that Hale wouldn’t take his vendetta out on Danny or Lydia.

            But Ethan just settled back in the chair. He knew wouldn’t leave, no matter how badly he wanted to. It was selfish and he knew, but selfishness was probably the least among his sins. For the first time in his life, he had something that belonged to him, and only to him. He didn’t want to let it go. 

            He propped his boots up on the bed’s metal side frame, reaching a hand out to take Danny’s, warm and alive under his palm. He wanted to close his eyes, and sleep for days, but the incessant beep and whir of the machine wouldn’t allow it. So he just sat, mapping the tracery of bones and veins beneath Danny’s skin. He wanted to memorize every inch of this boy, wanted to know everything about. Another selfish desire, because he knew he couldn’t, wouldn’t be able to return the favor. Ethan was bound to Danny by some invisible force, so silent call that his wolf longed to answer. Danny was bound to Ethan only because of the lies he’s been told.  He didn’t know his boyfriend was a monster, a murderer who killed teenage boys because of blood feuds, who manipulated people with love and affection in order to eliminate a threat. Danny deserved better than that.

            Ethan’s ears picked up the sound even before the monitor did, the minuscule change in the rhythm, a slight hitching of Danny’s breath. His eye lids fluttered, taking a minute to adjust while his numbed brain reminded him of where he was. Half lidded and still heavy with drug induced sleep, Danny’s dark eyes roved the room, before they came to rest on Ethan and he smiled.

Ethan’s heart slammed hard and painful against his ribs for a moment, even as the smile curled on his own lips. He done nothing in his short life that made him even remotely worthy of this man’s affections. He knew it was selfish,  shallow, and unfair to Danny but every time those impossibly dark eyes landed on him, he couldn’t help the feeling of utter calm that settled in him. Like everything he’d done in the past, was the past. Like there was hope and a future for him, if he was strong enough to fight for it. He wasn’t sure he was. But Danny was strong, a shelter in the storm. Danny was a survivor, not in that instinctual, basic way that Ethan had lived his whole life, fighting  tooth and bloody nail to keep his head above water, to hold on to the only tangible thing he had left in this world, to keep Aidan at his side and breathing. Danny didn’t just know how to survive, he knew how to live. And Ethan hoped it was something he could learn too.

One day he’d come clean. One day he’d tell the truth. One day he’d be able to look Danny in the eye and admit what he was, what he’d done, would let Danny decide what to do with him from there. Because Danny deserved that at least. He deserved the truth. But not tonight. 


End file.
